Sunday, 16 December 2007

Fawlty Towers lives

Last night Jane and I stayed in one of the worst hotels in England but sadly i have forgotten what it was called and she's asleep so I can't name and shame them. I say hotel but this is 'just' some rooms above a pub. So many rooms, however, that we felt it could be categorised as a hotel if it only had, say, at least one bedside light per room.

The room looked as if it had been used for a nightclub in which people stubbed out their fags on the floor, poured their drinks over the furniture and occasionally punched a hole in the wall. When the bar shut at midnight, the staff held their own disco in the room beneath ours, although they did have the heart to turn the music down a tad when I stamped on the floor. If only I had been wearing shoes at the time, I might not still be suffering a sharp pain in my heel.

Have we become too demanding in our sophisticated travels? I wouldn't mind if we'd been in the arse-end of nowhere but we were in Brighton. Hove actually.

At breakfast, Jane asked the elderly gent in charge of a morning if he might consider heating the dining room. The room, unlike the bedrooms, had been recently decorated and was 'dressed' with sheets draped from the ceiling and an array of paper lampshades attached to the ceiling by way of threads and drawing pins. But it being a cold winter's day and the room being unheated, we were sadly unable to rise to any appreciation of the decor.

The man brought in an electric heater of the sort that should stand upright or be fixed to a wall. As it had suffered the loss of one of its two legs, he laid it on the floor. He unplugged the one string of xmas lights, plugged in the heater and appeared satisfied that he had met the requirements of the guests.

We were then distracted by a beautiful young Spanish man offering us breakfast. Jane asked what was for breakfast, to which he replied, 'Eenglish breakfast.' She said she didn't want that so he said, 'Vezjtarian breakfast,' at which she gave in, although she had been holding out hope for some muesli, yoghurt and a croissant. Ha ha.

It was only later when the people at the next table (possibly the only other guests in the hotel) upon remarking to us that it was like Fawlty Towers and testing the heater to check it wasn't likely to set the carpet alight, realised it was not actually switched on.